August 4
The Scorpion's Heart Still Burns
Sun Position
The Sun is in Leo at approximately +17° declination. Long summer days persist across the Northern Hemisphere; in the Southern Hemisphere, the early evenings are darkening as winter begins its slow exit.
Sky Highlight
The Perseid radiant climbs high enough after midnight in the Northern Hemisphere to produce clear pre-dawn activity; the shower is approaching its peak. Southern Hemisphere observers can see occasional Perseids with a northern horizon view, but rates are limited by the radiant's low altitude.
Deep Sky Object
M6, the Butterfly Cluster, and nearby M7 in Scorpius are well placed on August evenings for Southern Hemisphere observers and for Northern Hemisphere viewers at southern latitudes. M6 lies roughly 1,600 light-years away and contains perhaps 80 stars arranged in a pattern that binoculars reveal as butterfly-shaped.
Featured Star
Antares, the M1.5Iab-b red supergiant at the heart of Scorpius, sits about 550 light-years away and shines with a deep ruddy light that has earned it the name 'rival of Ares' since antiquity. If placed at the center of our solar system, Antares would extend past the orbit of Mars.
Around This Date
- August 4, 2007NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander lifted off from Cape Canaveral; nine months later it would scoop soil from the Martian arctic and confirm the presence of water ice.
- August 6, 2012NASA's Curiosity rover touched down in Gale Crater on Mars using the novel sky crane landing system, beginning what would become more than a decade of surface exploration.
Antares has been called the scorpion's heart for thousands of years, and for once, the metaphor is physically accurate, that red light really is the pulse of something that could end suddenly.